“Maybe. But don’t you think your aunt Edith will do the same for you?”
“That’s different. She’s not even my aunt.”
“Who cares? She pays for your education, doesn’t she? She took you to Europe and bought you the world’s most expensive wooden leg. How much did that thing cost anyway?” Frankie asked with a smirk as he pointed to Lukas’s right foot.
“I never asked. I’m sure it’s an embarrassing amount.”
“You may not have had the luck of being born into a wealthy family like I did, but at least you found Edith Harford Girard Cooperton.” Frankie chuckled. “Or whatever her name is.”
“It’s Edith Covington Girard Harford. And she found me. You know the story.”
Lukas cringed as he thought of his accident at the Riverton train station. He could still hear his sister’s anguished cries for help as he lay on the ground with a mangled, bloody leg. He couldn’t remember being in terrible pain, only that he was cold and shivering uncontrollably. Suddenly, a dark-haired woman dressed in green was kneeling over him, comforting him.
“You got lucky that day.”
“Depends on how you look at it. I had to lose a leg to get hooked up with a rich lady who wants to mother me and finance my education.”
Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know. If you hadn’t been in that accident, you wouldn’t have met her. You’d be destined for work in a mill or factory.” He shuddered. “Seems like a fair trade to me.”
“We’ll see.”
“By the way, what was a woman like your aunt doing at a train station in a dirty steel town? Seems like an unlikely place for someone like her.”
“She was there to say goodbye to a friend.”
“She knew someone from Riverton?” Frankie asked, making no effort to hide his shock. “I thought that place was pretty rough.”
“It was. Still is, I think. Her friend worked at the mill. He was leaving town to start a new job.”
As Lukas and Frankie walked along Edgehill Drive toward the Johnstown Inclined Plane’s hilltop station, they passed a row of relatively new mansions of various architectural styles—late Victorian, English Tudor, and even the newer Shingle style. The homes were much smaller than the grand estates of Shadyside, but they still deserved to be called mansions. Lukas held a particular interest in art and architecture, awakened only when he had begun to spend time at Aunt Edith’s English Tudor estate. Westmont was not nearly as extravagant as Shadyside, but it was far more appealing to Lukas. It was less gaudy, and the people weren’t as pretentious as his aunt Edith’s neighbors.
“Looks like the car just went down the hill,” Frankie said as they arrived at the station. “We’ll have to wait another five minutes for the next one.”
Lukas looked down at his wristwatch. Aunt Edith had purchased it for him in London a few summers ago, convinced that everyone would soon be wearing timepieces on their wrists. The gadgets had become increasingly popular in the last few years since the start of the Great War. Soldiers fighting in the trenches found glancing at a wristwatch far more convenient than digging through their trousers for a pocket watch during the heat of battle.
“Our train leaves in twenty minutes. We should have enough time to walk the few blocks to the station. You hungry?” Lukas asked Frankie as he pulled a Hershey bar out of his pocket.
“Sure. I’ll take a few pieces.”
“You know, this incline is the steepest in the world. The slope has a seventy percent grade,” Lukas said.
“How do you know that?”
“Geometry class. Mr. Hansen mentioned it during his lesson on slopes and grades. Guess you weren’t paying attention.”
“No. I have a D in geometry at the moment.” Frankie shrugged.
Lukas wondered if his friend’s attitude toward school would ever change. He doubted it. Frankie’s future was guaranteed by a hefty trust fund—his expensive education simply a formality. Lukas envied him. He wished he could be as carefree, secure in the knowledge that his life’s course had already been charted, his position in society assured. He was still trying to figure out where he belonged.
Lukas left his friend’s side and walked over to the observation deck beside the incline’s station. He leaned over the railing and peered at the smoky valley containing the Conemaugh River and its many steel mills. He recalled his history lesson on the Johnstown Flood of 1889. The catastrophic flood killed two thousand people and wiped out most of the town. As a result, the inclined plane was constructed, and the hilltop on which he was standing was developed as a residential area for executives of the Cambria Iron Company. They wanted to live high above Johnstown, safe from the flooding in the valley below.
How ironic that Lukas, the son of a steelworker, had inadvertently become one of the privileged living at the top of the hill, looking down on the poor mill workers. Pitying them. He didn’t have to worry about losing his home and valuables—or maybe even his life—to a swollen river. He was not suffocated both day and night by noxious fumes coming from the mills. Through no feat of his own, he’d escaped the plight of these people who were once his peers. He felt guilty, but not nearly as much as he should have.
“What are you looking at?” Frankie leaned over the rail. “I can’t see anything through all that smoke.”
“The mills. They remind me of Riverton.”
“Bet you’re glad you escaped that place.”
“Truth is … I didn’t know how miserable it was until I’d left. I had no idea people lived the way you do.” Lukas gestured toward Frankie’s expensive clothing, his eyes coming to rest on his friend’s Italian leather shoes. “But I’m grateful I got out.”
“And all you had to do was lose a leg.”
“Jackass.” Lukas shoved Frankie, knocking him against the railing.
“Sorry. I was just speaking the truth.”
“Don’t I know it.” Lukas draped his arm over his friend’s shoulder and led him toward the gate to the incline. “Our car’s here.”
As Lukas descended the steep hillside, the inclined plane’s car breaking through the ceiling of smoke over town, he was keenly aware of his prosthetic leg. It was a constant source of bitterness for him. And anger. Lukas hated that his leg made him different from the other boys. But as his friend had pointed out, it had been his ticket out of the mills.
Twenty-Six
POLE
ABBOTT’S HOLLOW, SEPTEMBER 28, 1917
Pole had spent half the week with Hamish and the two Rusyns reinforcing the roof in the new section at the end of Ruthie Tunnel. Over a dozen massive timbers now lined the walls of the ten-foot-wide tunnel. The oak tree trunks they had used were heavy and had been difficult to maneuver into place, but they were rock solid. Pole’s back ached, but he didn’t mind as long as the roof above him stayed put. When blasting had begun in the tunnel late in the day on Wednesday, he’d been pleasantly surprised when the timbers barely shifted. There hadn’t been much creaking either.
As Pole drilled a hole in the face of the coal seam so Hamish could fill it with explosives, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Hey, Pole. Me and Gus are takin’ over for Billy and Rosie.”
Pole turned around to find Mickey standing behind him. “Where’d Billy go? It’s almost quittin’ time on a Friday. Makes no sense to switch him now.”
“He got kicked in the mouth. Mule knocked out two of his teeth and cut his lip real good,” the boy said, shaking his head.
“Which one was it? I know Rosie couldna done it. She’s a sweetheart,” Hamish said as he spat some chewing tobacco.
“It was one of them new mules. The big one, I think.”
“Billy’s lucky that mule didn’t take his head off,” Pole said.
“It wasn’t a direct hit. He just got clipped in the side of the head.” Mickey stroked Gus’s muzzle and pulled a sugar cube out of his pocket.
Pole watched the muscular gray mule gently take the sugar cube out of Mickey’s hand. He chewed it u
p quickly and nuzzled against the boy. “I’ve never seen that mule so attached to anyone,” Pole said.
“It’s all them sugar cubes the lad keeps feedin’ him. Be careful now,” Hamish said as he shoved a stick of black powder into the coal face. “That mule’s not a pet. He’s got a job to do down here, just like you and me.”
“Go easy,” said Pole. “A kid his age should be up top where the sun’s shinin’. Going to school and playing with his pals. If he’s gonna be stuck underground, he deserves at least one friend—even if he is a jackass.”
Hamish roared. “All my friends are jackasses! Down here and up top.” The old man laughed so hard he broke into a coughing fit. “Och, damn it! Where’s my water jug?”
“We’re getting ready to blast that wall in a few minutes, Mickey. You take Gus back down the tunnel and wait for me.” Pole looked over at the Rusyns, who were stabilizing one of the timbers that had buckled in the previous blast. “Blazovich! You done yet?”
The tall, blonde man turned around at the sound of his name.
“You done?” Pole repeated.
The man held up one finger.
“Okay. Another minute.” Pole pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s almost four o’clock. Hopefully, the next blast will give us a couple more loads of coal, and we can get outta here. Hamish, how’s that canary lookin’?”
Hamish walked over to where the yellow bird was sitting in her cage near the water jugs. “Still singin’. Methane must be all right. Let’s get that fuse lit.”
Pole glanced at Blazovich and Petras, who were driving a lag bolt into the wooden beam that was being squeezed under the weight of the roof. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped at the grime on his face. Pole hated the heavy black mask of coal dust, sweat, and grease that he wore after a long day in the mine. It made smiling cumbersome. Although he didn’t have much reason to smile when he was mining almost a thousand feet underground.
“I’ll light the fuse this time,” Pole said. “The rest of you head back down the tunnel with Mickey and Gus. I’ll be there in a minute.”
As Hamish and the Rusyns left the area with their lunch buckets and water jugs, Pole approached the coal face. He took off his carbide headlamp and held its flame up to the end of the fuse hanging out of the hole packed with explosives. The fuse glowed faintly and let out a few puffs of smoke before it burst into a red-hot flame. As Pole backed up quickly, he admired the yellow and orange sparks flying in every direction. They reminded him of the sparklers he sometimes bought his sister at the five-and-dime in Portage. He could understand why she found them so mesmerizing.
As Pole turned around to head down the tunnel to where the others were waiting for him, his eye caught a flash of yellow along the wall, just eight or nine feet from where the blast would go off. It was the canary in her cage, agitated by the fireworks nearby. Pole had passed by the bird seconds earlier, but hadn’t noticed her in the dark. He’d been too focused on the dancing fuse.
“Christ Almighty!” he yelled. “Who left the goddamned bird?” Pole hesitated for a second and then ran back in the direction of the lit fuse. He grabbed the cage as the bird squawked and flapped its wings in protest. Pole sprinted down the tunnel toward safety. He guessed only twenty seconds had gone by since he’d lit the fuse. He hoped, anyway.
“Damn it, Pole! Did you turn around for that bird?” Hamish scolded him as soon as he saw the cage.
“What was I supposed to do? Let the poor thing get blown to bits? Besides, those safety fuses burn at a rate of thirty seconds per foot. I had—”
Boom.
The explosion cut Pole off in mid-sentence. The thunderous clatter of rocks falling to the ground followed instantly. Within seconds, a dense cloud of dust blew up the tunnel, forcing everyone to bury their faces in their shirtsleeves. Pole was able to shield his eyes from the black dust, but there was no way to prevent it from entering his lungs. He was soon hacking and coughing, as was everyone else.
“Sit tight a few minutes until that dust clears,” Pole said. “We’ll go back in when the roof stops creakin’. Mickey, I forgot my water jug. Can I have a drink of yours?”
“Least you didn’t forget the bird.” Hamish sniggered through deep, violent coughs. “That’s what’s important.”
After they had inspected the roof and timbers, Pole, Hamish, and the Rusyns loaded coal for over an hour. Pole’s backache was worsening by the minute. Each time he lifted a shovel full of coal, he felt a sharp pain shoot down his leg.
“I don’t care what the foreman says. I’m not workin’ tomorrow. I deserve a Saturday off every once in a while,” Pole said as he threw down his shovel and wiped his brow with his sleeve. He was hot and sweaty even though the temperature in the mine was no more than fifty degrees. He took a drink from his water jug.
“I think it’s quittin’ time. Them cars are full enough,” Hamish said to the Rusyns.
Blazovich and Petras continued to shovel coal, oblivious to what Hamish had said.
“Are those lads deaf, or do they really not understand a lick of English?” He walked over to the Rusyns and tapped the shorter one on the shoulder. When the dark-haired man turned around, Hamish gave him a thumbs up. “We’re done.”
Petras smiled happily, his big yellow teeth lighting up his blackened face.
“Mickey, hook Gus up to that car,” Pole said, pointing to the car he and Hamish had just loaded. “I’ll help Blazovich and Petras push theirs down the track.”
Pole walked over to the Rusyns and helped them line their car up with the one Mickey was chaining to his mule’s harness. Each car weighed almost a thousand pounds, but luckily for both mule and miner, the cars were on rails. Pole and the two Rusyns put all their weight behind the car and pushed it several feet down the track. Pole winced as sharp, stabbing pains traveled down his right leg.
“All right, Gus,” Pole said as he rubbed the back of his leg. “The rest is up to you.” He turned to Hamish and the Rusyns. “You three go up ahead of the mule. I’m goin’ to hang back with Mickey and Gus in case they get into trouble.”
“Yer sure?” asked Hamish. “You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t feel so good either. It’s my goddamned back and leg.”
“Kinda young, aren’t you? To be so soft.” Hamish chuckled.
“Just get outta here, old-timer.” Pole slapped Hamish on the back. He nodded to Blazovich and Petras, who waved at him as they grabbed their tools and lunch buckets. Petras, with his yellow-toothed grin, grabbed the bird cage and winked.
“Thanks for offering to stay with me, Pole, but I got this. Me and Gus know what we’re doin’,” said Mickey.
“I know you’ve got the best mule in the mine. He’s strong and sturdy.”
“Never even used my whip on him. He just goes when I slap his ass,” Mickey said, smacking the mule on the behind. The massive beast slowly pulled the cars down the tracks.
“I figured you might like some human company, too. It’s creepy down here after all the miners clear out for the day,” Pole said.
“Yeah, it’s mighty dark. And the rats are the size of dogs.”
Pole chuckled as he looked up the tunnel. His carbide headlamp threw a beam of light along the track, illuminating two rats running toward them.
“Aww, shit. Here come a couple now,” said Mickey. “And two more behind ‘em.”
“Fuck.” Pole was struck by a wave of panic. “That’s not a good sign, Mickey. Stop Gus and keep quiet. We need to listen.”
As the rats scurried by Pole’s feet, he heard the ominous sound of creaking coming from somewhere up Ruthie Tunnel. He couldn’t be sure how far it was. Maybe fifty or sixty yards? He stood completely still as the creaking got louder. He looked over at Mickey whose face had gone white.
“Take it easy there, kid. We need to stay put for a few minutes. Chances are … that roof will calm down.”
Suddenly, Pole heard a shower of rocks. At first, it was only a few, but within
seconds, it sounded like a violent hail storm. Only hundreds of times louder. It was getting closer. “Mickey! Unhook Gus! We need to get back to the other end of the tunnel!”
Pole grabbed the water jugs as the boy fussed with the mule’s harness. The downpour was growing louder. “Forget the harness! Just unhook the chain on the car. He can drag it behind him.” Pole’s heart raced as a rush of adrenaline surged through him.
Mickey did as he was told and ran with Gus and Pole back down the tunnel to where they had been working.
“Run, lads, run!” Hamish screamed from somewhere behind. “The whole fuckin’ tunnel’s cavin’ in!”
Pole turned around to see Hamish stumbling behind him, his headlamp casting an erratic beam of light in every direction. He was clutching a bloody shoulder and struggling to catch his breath. A massive cloud of dust was on his heels, pursuing him like a wild animal.
Pole ran the ten yards back to where Hamish was staggering along the tunnel wall and grabbed him by the arm. He pulled him through the darkness toward what he hoped was safety.
And then the most ghastly of sounds. An avalanche of earth and rock. An enormous cloud of dust.
Pole hit the ground and the world went dark.
Twenty-Seven
LUKAS
SHADYSIDE, SEPTEMBER 28, 1917
Lukas stabbed an unusually large piece of romaine lettuce on his Meissen salad plate as he listened to his adopted aunt and uncle debate the menu for the following evening’s dinner party. His stomach was nearly full, but he knew he’d never get any dessert if he didn’t finish his salad. He wondered what sorts of sweets the chef had concocted in honor of his visit.
“I’m sorry, James, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to serve roast beef to a state senator when our country is in the middle of a war. How would that look? We’re supposed to be rationing meat. The cook has plenty of salmon left for tomorrow night. It was delicious, wasn’t it, Lukas?” Aunt Edith asked.
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